The Unknown Revolution, Book Two : Part 02, Chapter 01

1921

People

(1882 - 1945) ~ Bolshevik-Aligned Leader of the Russian Nabat Anarchists : March of 1920 saw him taken to Moscow, where he would remain prisoner until October, when he and many other anarchists were released by virtue of a treaty between the Soviet Union and Makhno's army. Voline then returned to Kharkov, resuming his old activities... (From : Rudolph Rocker Bio.) • "Yet there is consolation to be had. The masses learn through all too palpable first hand experience. And the experience is there." (From : "The Unknown Revolution," by Voline.) • "Socialism, so mighty in Germany, Austria and Italy, has proved powerless. 'Communism', itself very strong, especially in Germany, has proved powerless. The trade unions have proved powerless. How are we to account for this?" (From : "The Unknown Revolution," by Voline.) • "As we know, there it was an authoritarian state communism (Bolshevism) that scored a stunning and rather easy victory in the events of 1917. Now, these days, nearly seventeen years on from that victory, not only is communism proving powerless to resist fascism abroad, but, where the regime within the USSR itself is concerned, the latter is more and more often being described more and more deliberately as 'red fascism'." (From : "The Unknown Revolution," by Voline.)

And now, our philosophical parenthesis concluded, let us return to the events [involved in all this].

Part II. About the October Revolution

Chapter 1. Bolsheviks and Anarchists Before October

Here we find occasion to go back and review the respective positions of
the Bolsheviks and the Anarchists prior to the October Revolution.

The position of the Bolsheviki on the eve of that revolution was characteristic.

It is well to recall, however, that Lenin’s ideology and the position of
his party had changed considerably since 1900. Aware that the Russian
laboring masses, once started in revolt, would go far and would not
stop at a bourgeois solution — especially in a country where the
bourgeoisie hardly existed as a class — Lenin and his party, in their
desire to anticipate and dominate the masses in order to lead them,
ended by formulating an extremely advanced revolutionary program. They
now envisaged a strictly Socialist revolution. And they arrived at an
almost libertarian conception of the revolution, with almost Anarchist
slogans — except, of course, with regard to the fundamental point of
demarcation — the taking of power and the problem of the State.

When I read the writings of Lenin, especially those after 1914, I
observed a perfect parallelism between his ideas and those of the
Anarchists, except for the idea of the State and power. This identity of
understanding, recognition, and prediction seemed to me already very
dangerous for the true cause of the Revolution. For — I did not
fool myself — under the pen, in the mouths, and in the acts, of the
Bolsheviks, all these great ideas were without real life, without a
future. These writings and these words, fascinating and overpowering,
would remain without serious consequences, because the subsequent acts
[of the Bolsheviki] certainly were not going to correspond to their
theories.

But I was sure that, on the one hand, the masses, in view of the
weakness of the Anarchist movement, would blindly follow the Bolsheviks,
and that, on the other hand, the latter inevitably would deceive the
masses and mislead them into an evil course. For beyond any doubt they
would distort and pervert their proclaimed principles.

That is what happened in fact.

In order to quicken the spirit of the masses, and gain their sympathy
and confidence, the Bolshevik Party launched, with all the strength of
its agitational and propaganda apparatus, slogans which until then had
particularly and insistently been voiced by the Anarchists:

Long live the Social Revolution!
Down with the war! Immediate peace!

And especially:

The land to the peasants!
The factories to the workers!

The laboring masses swiftly seized upon these slogans, which expressed their real aspirations perfectly.

From the lips and under the pens of the Anarchists, those slogans were
sincere and concrete, for they corresponded to their principles and
called for action entirely in conformity with such principles. But with
the Bolsheviks, the same slogans meant practical solutions totally
different from those of the libertarians, and did not at all tally with
the ideas which the words appeared to express. For the Bolsheviki, they
were only slogans.

Social Revolution meant for the Anarchists a really social act:
a transformation which would take place outside of all political and
statist organizations, and all out-moded social systems — both
governmental and authoritarian.

But the Bolsheviks pretended to wage the Revolution specifically with
the aid of an omnipotent State, of an all-powerful government, of
dictatorial power.

If a revolution did not abolish the State, the government, and politics,
the Anarchists did not consider it a social revolution, but simply a
political revolution — which of course might be more or less colored by
social elements.

But achievement of power and organization of “their” government and
“their” State spelled the Social Revolution for the “Communists” [the
label which the Bolsheviki adopted later].

In the minds of the Anarchists, social revolution meant destruction of the State and capitalism at the same time, and the birth of a new society based on another form of social organization.

For the Bolsheviks, social revolution meant, on the contrary, the resurrection of the State
after the abolition of the bourgeois State — that is to say, the
creation of a powerful new State for the purpose of “constructing
Socialism”.

The Anarchists held it impossible to institute Socialism by means of the State.

The Bolsheviki maintained that it could be achieved only through the State.

This difference of interpretation was, as will readily be seen, fundamental.

(I recall big posters on a wall in Petrograd, at the time of the October Revolution, announcing lectures by Trotsky on The Organization of Power.
“A typical and fatal error,” I said to comrades, “for if it is a
question of social revolution, one should be concerned with organizing
the Revolution and not with organizing power.”)

Respective interpretation of the call for immediate peace also was notably different.

To the Anarchists that slogan was a call for direct action by the armed
masses themselves, over the heads of the governors, the politicians, and
the generals. According to the anarchists, those masses should leave
the front and return to the country, thus proclaiming to the world their
refusal to fight stupidly for the interests of the capitalists and
their disgust with the shameful butchery. Such a gesture, frank,
integrated, decisive — the Anarchists believed — would produce an
enormous effect upon the soldiers of the other nations, and might lead,
in the last analysis, to the end of the war, perhaps even to its
transformation into a world revolution. They thought that it was
necessary, taking advantage of the immensity of Russia, to draw the
enemy on, cut him off from his bases, cause his Army to disintegrate,
and put him out of the fighting.

The Bolsheviks, however, were afraid of such direct action. Politicians
and statists, they wanted a peace through political and diplomatic
channels, the fruit of discussions with the German generals and
“plenipotentiaries”.

The land to the peasants! the factories to the workers! By
these words the Anarchists understood that, without being the I property
of anyone, the land should be put at the disposal of all those who
desired to cultivate it (without exploiting anyone) i and of their
associations and federations, and that likewise the factories, works,
mines, machines, et cetera, should be at the disposal of all the
workers’ productive associations and their federa- j tions. Methods and
details of this activity would be regulated by those associations and
federations, by free agreement.

But to the Bolsheviki this same slogan meant the nationalization of all
those elements. For them the land, the works, the factories, the mines,
the machines, and the means of transport should be the property of the State, which would permit the workers to use them.

Again, the difference of interpretation was fundamental.

As for the masses themselves, intuitively they understood all those
slogans rather in the libertarian sense. But, as we have said earlier,
the voice of Anarchism was relatively so weak that the vast masses
didn’t hear it. It seemed to them that only the Bolsheviks dared to
proclaim and defend these glorious and just principles. This was all the
more true in that the Bolshevik Party proclaimed itself every day on
the street corners as being the only party struggling for the interests
of the city workers and the peasants; the only party which, once in power, would know how to achieve the Social Revolution.

“Workers and peasants! The Bolshevik Party is the only one which
defends you. No other party knows how to lead you to victory. Workers
and peasants! The Bolshevik Party is your own party. It is the only
party that is really yours. Help it to take power and you will triumph.”

This leitmotif of the Bolshevik propaganda finally became an
obsession. Even the left Social Revolutionary Party, which was much
stronger than the small Anarchist groups, could not rival the
Bolsheviks. However, it was then strong enough so that the Bolsheviki
had to reckon with it and offer it, for some time, seats in the
government.

Finally, it is interesting to compare the position of the Bolsheviks to
that of the Anarchists, on the eve of the October Revolution, on the question of the workers’ soviets.

The Bolsheviki expected to achieve the Revolution, on the one hand,
through an insurrection of these Soviets, which were demanding “all
power” for themselves, and, on the other hand, through military
insurrection which would support the action of the Soviets (the whole
proceedings of course under the immediate and effective direction of the
party). The working masses had the task of vigorously supporting this
action, In perfect accord with their point of view and their “tactics”,
the Bolsheviks launched the general slogan of the Revolution: “All power to the Soviets!.”

As for the Anarchists, they were suspicious of this slogan and for good
reason — they knew well that that formula did not at all correspond with
the real plans of the Bolshevik Party. They knew that in the last analysis the latter sought highly centralized power for itself.
(That is, for its central committee and ultimately for its leader,
Lenin, who, aided by Trotsky, as is now generally known, directed all
the preparations for the taking of power).

“All power to the Soviets!” was therefore, in reality, according to the
Anarchists, only an empty formula, subject to being filled later with
any kind of content. And it was a false, hypocritical, deceptive formula
— for, the Anarchists declared, if “power” really should belong to the
Soviets, it could not belong to the Bolshevik Party, and if it should
belong to that Party, as the Bolsheviks envisaged, it could not belong
to the Soviets.

That is why the Anarchists, while admitting that the Soviets should
perform certain functions in the building of the new society, did not
accept the formula without reservations. To them, the word power
rendered it ambiguous, suspect, illogical, and demagogic. They knew
that, by its very nature, political power could not really be exercised
except by a very restricted group of men at the center. Therefore this
power — the real power — could not belong to the Soviets. It
would actually be in the hands of the party. Then what did the formula
“All power to the Soviets” truly mean?

Comment and doubts having to do with that theme were expressed by the Anarcho-Syndicalists in an editorial entitled Is This the End?, published in their weekly, Golos Truda.[7] Pointed 0uestions were asked in that editorial.

“Will the eventual realization of the formula, All power to the Soviets — rather the eventual taking of political power — be the end?
Wili this be all? Will this act accomplish the destructive work of the
Revolution? Will it completely prepare the ground for the great social
construction, for the creative spirit of the people in revolt? Will the
victory of the ‘Soviets’ — if it is achieved — and, again, the
‘organization of power’ which will follow it, effectively signify the
victory of labor, of the organized forces of the workers, the beginning of genuine Socialist construction?

Will this victory and this new ‘power’ succeed in leading the Revolution
out of the impasse in which it finds itself? Will they manage to open
new creative horizons for the Revolution, for the masses, for everyone? Are they going to point out the true course for the Revolution to constructive work, the effective solution for all the burning questions of the period?”

It would all depend, the Anarcho-Syndicalist organ contended, on what interpretation the conquerors put on the word power and their idea of the organization of power. It would depend, too, on the way in which the victory would be utilized by the elements holding power after that victory.

Plainly pessimistic, the editors of Golos Truda cited several circumstances vitally necessary to a just and equitable handling of the situation by the Bolsheviki. Only if certain
factors existed, they averred, could the new crisis become the last
one; only then could it signify the beginning of a new era. Those
factors embodied five ifs:

“If by ‘power’ one wishes to say that all creative work and all
organizational activity throughout the whole country will be in the
hands of the workers’ and peasants’ organizations, supported by the armed masses;

If one understands by ‘power’ the full right of these organizations to
carry on this activity and to federate to this end ... thus beginning
the new economic and social construction which will lead the Revolution
to new horizons of peace, economic equality, and true liberty;

If ... ‘power to the Soviets’ does not signify installation of lobbies of a political power ... ;

If, finally, the political party aspiring to power ... liquidates itself
after the victory and yields its place effectively to a free
self-government of the workers; and

If the ‘power of the Soviets’ does not become, in reality, statist power of a new political party.”

But, the Anarcho-Syndicalists held, if “power” actually meant the
activity of the authoritarian and political lobbies of the Bolshevik
Party, lobbies directed by its principal authoritarian and political
center (the central power of the party and the State); if the; “taking
of power by the Soviets” really meant usurpation of power by a new
political party, for the purpose of reconstructing, by means of this
power, from above and by that “center”, the whole economic and social
life of the country, and thus resolving the complex problems of the
moment and of the period — then this new stage of the Revolution would not be the final stage either.

Golos Truda did not doubt for an instant, it stated, that “this
new power” would neither begin nor understand the real Socialist
construction, nor even satisfy the immediate essential needs and
interests of the population. And it did not doubt that the masses would
quickly become disenchanted with their new idols and be forced to turn
to other solutions after having disavowed those new gods. Then, after an
interval — of uncertain length — the struggle would of necessity begin
again. This would be the commencement of the third and last stage of the
Russian Revolution — a stage which would be a Great Revolution in
itself.

“This will be a struggle [the editorial continued] between the living
forces of the creative spirit of the masses, on the one hand, and the
Social Democratic power, with its centralist spirit, defending itself
bitterly, on the other. In other words: a struggle between the workers’
and peasants’ organizations acting directly and on their own, taking the
land and all the means of production, transport, and distribution, to
establish, in complete independence, a really new human existence — this
on the one hand, and the Marxist political authority on the other; a
struggle between the authoritarian and libertarian systems; a contest
between two principles which have been battling for preeminence for a
long time: the Marxist principle and the Anarchist principle.”

And, the Anarcho-Syndicalist editors concluded, only a complete and definitive victory of the Anarchist principle — the principle of the free and natural self-organization of the masses — would spell a true victory for the Great Revolution.

They did not believe, they declared, in the possibility of achieving the
Social Revolution through the political process. They did not believe
that the work of new social construction, and the solution of the vast,
varied, and complex problems of that time could be achieved through a
political act, by the taking of power by the top or center. “Those who
live,” they predicted, “shall see!